


Why We Fight

by shihadchick



Category: CSI
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-03
Updated: 2006-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:06:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gil and Greg have an argument.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why We Fight

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://highwaymiles.livejournal.com/profile)[**highwaymiles**](http://highwaymiles.livejournal.com/) challenge.

He doesn’t know why they’re fighting.

That’s the only truth, the only thing he can grasp right now which isn’t vicious and ugly and slipping nearly out of control. He doesn’t know _why_.

Oh, there’s reasons, superficial and meaningful all at once, that’s true enough, but if he could stop to think long enough – if he could _think_ full stop – he knows that he wouldn’t be able to recall anything like this with any of his other CSIs. He’d disagreed with them professionally, personally, been let down or lied to, disappointed, debated their theories and proved them wrong. Been proved wrong in his turn. So long as they get the evidence, make it tell the story… he sees no harm in. And his people always come through in the end, it’s why they’re _his_ team, the second busiest – the best – crime lab in the country.

And he has never before been so absolutely, utterly, words-failingly _furious_ with them. With one of them in particular. Right now, he wants nothing less than to wipe that ugly, sullen smirk off Greg’s face, to shake him and--

Cutting himself off mid-word he slams his jaw shut, leaning back hard into the upholstery of the Denali, thinking furiously.

“What? What the hell is your problem, Grissom? It was perfectly-“ Greg apparently hasn’t got the memo his own brain just delivered, is still in full flight, and that’s another thing he’s never seen before – Greg absolutely fuming, completely thoughtless with rage. He’d always known Greg was smart – not just with the work, because he’d never have hired him otherwise, that was a given – but people-smart as well. He’s good with people, with their motivations and with knowing what to say in a way that Gil never has been. Gil knows where to push, how to find a weakness and exploit it, or how to lead someone to a conclusion or a direction they need to see. He’d never really quite identified that little streak in Greg before, but it was certainly there all the same. And quite something to have that turned on yourself.

He puts out a hand, bracing himself against Greg’s chest, pushing him back into the passenger seat in turn. “Quiet. Please.” It’s probably the please that does it, because Greg chokes back the remainder of whatever he was saying and chews hard on his lip, waiting impatiently.

They’ve pulled well over into the shoulder, they’d been driving when it started, and Gil had just barely had the presence of mind to pull over, yanking the wheel hard in a spray of gravel and stomping on the brakes hard enough to have both of them going up against their safety belts. He can’t speak for Greg, naturally, but he’s probably going to have bruises tomorrow. Later today.

Back to the topic at hand. Which is just exactly why he and Greg are sitting in a dark car a hundred miles out of Vegas on the verge of demonstrating just exactly how a minor disagreement can snowball into a major problem. A major problem involving emergency services, because if there’s anything he is almost desperate to do right now, it’s to drag Greg out of the car and hit him. Just lay one on him.

He wonders what sort of point that would prove to his lizard-brain and tries to think past the impulse. But it’s not going away quite so easily as that.

”Greg.” Going for calm. Shooting for cool and collected. Tone not quite there but faking it anyway. They've only really been arguing for maybe five minutes as it is, it just _seems_ like longer. “Perhaps we should both get some air. Take a walk. Cool down. I’m sure once you’ve had a moment to think – and I do apologise, I was just as out of line as you were just now – I’m certain that you’ll agree with me.”

Greg shifts abruptly, half-turning in his seat, the belt a dark line bisecting the pale skin of his neck from the darker smudge that was his shirt, staring incredulously at him before replying, irritation and false patience dripping from every word. “I’m sorry, Grissom, what was that? You want me to get out and walk? Do you think I’m five years old?” He stops there, not breaking eye contact, jaw clenched tight, and Gil suspects that if he looked down now, he’d see Greg’s hands shaking – that giveaway, the one he carefully doesn’t notice when things get rough – see them trembling with the anger that’s rolling through him, that’s suffocating them both.

“Is that any way to speak to your boss?” It’s absolutely not what he’d intended to say, he’d been aiming for something vaguely conciliatory, and he spares a moment to wish this was Nick, he always knows what to say to Nicky, but he can’t seem to help himself now.

Greg growls something incoherent and shoves the door open, managing to release the seatbelt and scramble out in ten seconds flat. It’s only about as long again before Gil is following his example, throwing the door open in blithe disregard of any oncoming traffic and barrelling after Greg, Greg who is, it appears, kicking futilely at the Joshua tree just this side of the boundary marker.

Gil feels a little good humour trickle back at last, the wind cool on his face as he walks over, anger draining at last. “Those things bite, you know.”

Greg looks up, gives him a funny smile – one that’s just as dishonest as the last few, but in an entirely different way, and he’s moving closer, features sharpening as the car door light spills over him, and it’s more of a relief than Gil is quite ready for.

“You know, that would be _such_ a change from the rest of my evening.”

”Well, my bark is worse than my bite. I think.” And Gil has to laugh to himself for taking his own comment seriously, for the fact he has to stop and think about whether that’s true or not, but Greg isn’t laughing, Greg is still and quiet, leaning against the hood of the car, and he quirks a grin and says something that Gil is not meant to- that Gil definitely _does not_ hear – but there’s enough light, just enough, just barely for him to read his lips, the reflex, and Greg has just said, confessed, “I wouldn’t know.”

It’s a punch to the gut. A wrench and a re-establishing of boundaries so rapid that they’re torn down and rebuilt in an eye blink, as reaction and instinct are reassessed in the light of new information, and all of a sudden, it makes sense. And then sound and colour rush back in, the whiz-roar of the highway at their backs, the nearly inaudible hum of night insects, and Gil is looking at Greg, looking at him and admitting what he’s been trying not to see for quite a while now.

He’s quiet himself now, humming with an altogether different tension as he breathes “would you like to?”

He can’t break Greg’s gaze, can’t look away. Just watches him come closer, observes how anger and disappointment are muted by growing hope, by obvious need.

He could, sure, he could tear himself up some more with how this is a very bad idea, with how it’s wrong and taking advantage, and how Greg’s always been into hero worship and they all know it, but that was _years_ ago, now, really, and this is the man who has just verbally flayed him to the bone, who will push him in every respect, and just what exactly was he waiting for after all?

He’s prepared for the fierce heat as Greg pushes unashamedly up against him, invading his space, breathing shallowly, head tilted on an angle that he knows exposes his throat, that suggests a degree of surrender. That Greg knows he will note, and appreciate.

His hands settle at Greg’s waist, tugging him closer. This would probably be a good time to reassure him that it is what he thinks (what he wants) and that it’s going to be okay. But he can’t seem to bring himself to do that, instead, he’s spinning Greg around, hands guiding him back into the door of the car, the door Greg left open minutes ago, and he’s right up against the door frame, spine curving back over the seat, inviting, and Gil leans in, nips at his jaw.

Time blurs again, then, and when the afterimages start to resolve into something a little less fuzzy, less needy, they’re tangled in together completely, breathing hard. Little red marks are coming up all over Greg’s neck, and he’s licking his lips almost compulsively, chin lifting helplessly as he tries to chase after Gil’s mouth, as Gil hovers above him, realising belatedly that his back is protesting the position quite strongly, leaning inside the car to kiss Greg again, pulling back long enough for him to scoot back a little and try to wrap his legs around Gil’s waist, and then he swears as his head hits the gearshift, wriggles as Gil ignores his protests and slides a hand up under his shirt, onto skin, glorious skin. He finds the imprint the safety-belt has left on the side of Greg's neck - a thin red score of raised skin, inflamed where the material had been chafing - it'd been a long drive even before he'd slammed the brakes on like that, and he licks the length of the mark in silent apology.

Greg’s trying to lay hands on him now in turn, but not quite managing to do so. His shirt is rucking up, catching on the upholstery of the seat, and it's obvious he's going to have some kind of carpet burn across his lower back after this. After a few abortive grabs he manages to land both hands on Gil’s shoulders, pulling himself a little more upright (shoulders peeling less than gracefully away from the car seat) before asking “are you sure we should be doing this _here_?”

Gil shoots him a wicked grin before sliding a daring hand into his pants (admittedly, hoping with every fibre of his being that their luck is not about to break and have vengeance in the form of the LVPD descend upon them) and making Greg moan sharply as he asks, “would you rather go back to the arguing and displacement activity?”

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t.

And both of them are very, very careful about where they’re shining the ALS around the Denali from that day on.


End file.
